The police chief and his department have been cleared of electioneering charges made by the city mayor.
The investigation was conducted by the Utah Attorney General's Office following a complaint filed by Mayor Richard Taylor after the 1997 election.A letter from Weber County attorney Mark DeCaria said Davis County attorney Mel Wilson "came to the conclusion that no prosecution would follow from the incident."
The Davis County attorney was involved in the matter because DeCaria thought it would be a conflict of interest for his office to pursue the matter since it works closely with the Washington Terrace Police Department.
Police Chief Merv Taylor read the letter from DeCaria at Thursday's City Council meeting after admonishing the audience to stay quiet while he made his presentation.
The sometimes-rowdy audience at Washington Terrace Council meetings has disrupted presentations by speakers with whom it disagrees.
Taylor read a prepared statement to the council and audience, saying he wanted the community to know the accusations were false.
Mayor Richard Jackson said the investigation only looked at one accusation and that it would continue to look at others. Taylor responded angrily that he was told "the rest of the allegations were so ridiculous they would not be investigated."
Ron Miller, chief of investigations for the attorney general's office, said other complaints were made by Jackson, but this was the only one his office was going to investigate.
Fliers about the city's drug abuse prevention program DARE sparked the incident. The DARE program was one of the hot issues during the contentious Washington Terrace mayor's race last year.
Jackson claimed the program was defunct, while then-Mayor Brad Dee said it was not. On election day, police officers involved with the program took fliers about the program to schools that were doubling as polling places.
Though the fliers didn't support one candidate over another or mention the election, some voters complained the fliers violated electioneering laws that prohibit distributing political items near the polls on election day.